Identifies nine factors offered in explanation for stage fright by undergraduate students without any formal background in communication: mistakes, unfamiliar role, humiliation, negative results, rigid rules, personality traits, preparation, audience interest, and physical appearance. Shows that respondents' own previous public-speaking experience…

Examines the crisis-communication strategies employed by Odwalla, Inc. during its juice contamination crisis, a crisis whose impact on public health and safety gave it the potential for developing into an issue that required public policy relief. Finds that public-relations response strategies dominated legal response strategies, followed by mixed…

Suggests a theoretical framework to incorporate the new cultural environment into studies of international communication. Illuminates the context of the shift in postwar international communication research. Offers some theoretical discussion toward developing an approach to international communication that considers the cultural-ideological…

Examines tactics undergraduate students use for avoiding and cutting arguments short. Finds that the episodes that were cut short were also the ones highest in explicitness and destructiveness. Suggests that cutting short, rather than avoidance, is the preferred solution to explicit, destructive conflicts. (CR)

Examines the public discourse of McDonald's and the Environmental Defense Fund's alliance. Shows that both partners drew from the emerging discourse of market environmentalism and from the older paradigm of command and control. Argues that this rhetorical ambivalence is emblematic of the contemporaneous sociopolitical conflict over how the…

Explores role of cognitive efficiency in interaction planning and plan performance of undergraduate students--one study explicated the concept of cognitive efficiency relating to communication processes; two others aimed at extending existing plan-based theorizing. Suggests cognitive efficiency and interaction experience are at the root of…

Investigates how parliamentary procedure is practiced in community groups, and how the use of parliamentary procedure facilitates or constrains vigilance and critical thinking. Finds that parliamentary procedures are widely practiced in a limited form. Reports on a case study showing how parliamentary procedure was employed to facilitate…

Claims organizational or management communication finds itself in a difficult rhetorical dilemma. Suggests that even evolving and outward-looking networks have a tendency toward closure, self-affirmation and self-legitimation. Claims repeated and conscious decisions--affirmative action as understood in its older sense--are needed to push beyond…

Examines stories told by the members of a Roman Catholic parish staff to each other in informal settings, investigating ways they reinforced or challenged the organization's power structure and reflected changes in cultural traditions. Shows that much story content reinforced the church's hierarchy, and occasionally reflected changes in the larger…

Examines Kathleen Hall Jamieson's theory of "eloquence in the electronic age." Explores "The Art of Public Speaking," finding that it takes little account of the latest developments in rhetorical theory and changes in expectations of public speaking and eloquence. Suggests how public speaking texts might uphold the classical virtues of eloquence…

Investigates the productivity of communication programs by ranking doctoral institutions (1) globally, based on top award winning National Communication Association and International Communication Association conference papers, and (2) according to selected specialties in communication studies. Argues that these results can be used in conjunction…

Finds that self-reported loneliness was not related to depression or social anxiety for either young or older adults, and was not related to young or older adults' social skill as measured by partner attention. Indicates that social anxiety, however, was related to social skill during intergenerational conversations. (SR)

Investigates the extent to which forward inferences are activated and encoded during reading, as well as their prevalence and their time course. Finds that inferences were encoded and retained in working memory in both high- and low-predictability conditions, and that high-predictability forward inferences were encoded into long-term memory.…

Examines the impact of persuasive fear appeals promoting condom usage to prevent AIDS. Indicates that inherent level of anxiety influences how both the threat and the efficacy of recommended responses are perceived, but that trait anxiety/repression-sensitization has no influence on attitudes, intentions, behaviors, perceived manipulation, or…

Traces development of the campaign history genre by exploring two key exemplars: T. White's "The Making of the President 1960" and R.B. Cramer's "What It Takes: The Way to the White House." Reveals that the books make sense of the election, develop a reciprocal relationship between private man and public figure, and create an authoritarian reading…